Koban (48 page)

Then via transducer he heard, “Sir, Eight warriors are running
this way, only one is from the shuttle.”

“Any of them in blue uniforms?”

“No Sir,”

“Then we probably can’t talk to them. I wonder if we should put
all our guns in the bag?” Mirikami mused.

“We have novice status like the armed people inside, just different
guns. Very useless guns against them anyway.”

“You’re right Dillon. Slip of the brain there. I’m tired.” Mirikami
sighed. He finally realized the price he was paying for the three doses of Oxy and
Pep pills he had popped this day.

The Krall covered the half mile in well under the time the hauler
had taken to cross the three hundred feet from the dome. Four of the warriors leaped
into the hold, deflecting in from a single jump onto the center of the ramp. The
other four took positions facing out and watching the sky on either side of the
ramp at its foot.

The humans stood still, watching the four but avoiding direct
eye contact as usual. One especially large warrior, in dark gray, stepped forward
and in nearly perfect Standard asked, “Is the human clan leader on the ship?”

Mirikami gathered his draining reserves of energy and boldly
walked right up to the warrior, who towered nearly two feet over him. “I am Captain
Mirikami, clan leader of the humans from this ship.”

A Krall rarely displayed much of an expression that humans could
easily recognize, but this unusually large warrior looked down on the smaller than
average human with what could only be described as incredulity.

Mirikami noticed that the tattoo he bore was far more filled
with colored markings and dots than had been Parkoda’s. It was nearly three quarters
full compared to less than half filled for Parkoda or Telour. He took a stab in
the dark guess.

“You are a leader of one of the Great Clans,” he stated.

“I am Gatrol Kanpardi of the Graka clan, yes. Telour told me
you were different, and understood us better than most humans. You are a new capture,
yet you face me correctly without fear, and you smell as if you have come from combat.”

Well, Mirikami was thinking, I fought gravity all day, so the
stink comes honestly.

Another thought was that this was a Krall with two names. Parkoda
had bragged that Krall warrior names were earned, and not like those first given
to their cubs. Mirikami wondered how many names they could earn.

“You also recognized I have considerable status. I have the highest
status for Graka clan in this sector, a rank that humans might call ‘General’ if
you still had armies.” It could be Krall bragging, but it seemed more like a simple
statement of fact.

“Telour has claimed that he can gain status for himself and for
our clan if he is allowed to use you to teach humans on Koban how to fight.”

He looked him over again, leaning from side to side for a slightly
different perspective. “You do not look like you could fight a cub.”

“In truth, I am not a great warrior.” No need to try a bluff,
or to disguise his intentions. “My role will be to organize my people here to find
weapons, strategy, and tactics that will help humans find ways to kill your strong
but foolish young warriors.”

A head toss and snort proved he had hit another Krall funny bone.
Perhaps I should be a Krall standup comic,
he thought sardonically.

“In fact we too want this,” the Krall confirmed, “but after years
of watching your worlds in secret, and observing and testing many of you animals
here, I found only a few that can fight well, and none ready to do this more than
once.”

Mirikami needed to counter this idea of human weakness, “You
speak our language very well, better perhaps than Telour, yet your long study of
us remains incomplete. You still doubt that humans once fought wars and killed millions
of our own people?”

“Captives talk of these wars, but you have no armies now and
you have not fought any wars in the lifetime of any I questioned. Some clans think
you have lost the instinct to fight, and say we should kill you quickly, or make
you our slaves. Your primitive race is able to make many things, but we have makers
now of all things we use for war.” This repeated the same story they knew.

“We have not had large wars for three hundred of our years, that
is true…,” Mirikami paused. “You have two names, and I do not know the proper way
to speak to you. Do I use one name or both?”

“Kanpardi is my first earned warrior name, that is acceptable,”
he answered.

“Kanpardi, I participated in multiple small fights in space when
I was young, and there have been a number of small battles on rebellious colony
worlds in my lifetime. However, my race had a great war that nearly killed all of
our males, only two or three of each hundred lived.

“We have avoided new wars that could end our race. Now the number
of males has almost returned to what was lost three hundred years ago. My people
will relearn the skills of war, if given time to do so.”

After a brief moment of consideration, all the time a Krall ever
seemed to spend thinking, Kanpardi had a response that seemed to reconcile Mirikami’s
statement with the Krall’s own worldview.

“We have found that the Great Path is slow to make us stronger,
so to lose the ability to fight wars should also not happen quickly. Our other enemies
took many thousands of your years to forget how to fight. They believed their smart
machines could fight for them and protect them, and they all lost to us when we
used the same machines with better warriors.

“Your people live long compared to us, and only two of your generations
have passed since you last made war. You should lose the love of war more slowly
than that. It should still be in your hearts.”

“Does that mean you think we can learn to fight well enough to
help you on your Great Path?”

Another brief pause by Kanpardi. A deep thinker for a Krall.
“Telour was correct. You say the right things to us. And why would you want to help
us reach our goal to rule the galaxy?”

“I
don’t
want to help you, and my race doesn’t. We would
prefer to have peaceful relations. But failing in that, we would rather destroy
you totally than to be defeated by you.”

Damn! Another snort.
So far that was the only way he had
been “killing” them. With laughter.

“We are realistic enough to know our possibility of winning a
war with you is very low. Nevertheless, as long as we are alive, and can delay your
victory, we can hope for a miracle that can save us. So we will fight you, even
if poorly at first.”

Proving he really had studied his enemy, Kanpardi rippled his
lips at the corners of his muzzle, as Telour had once done, clearly mimicking a
human smile. Then he went farther by stiffly nodding his head in another human gesture.

“I once told Telour when I encountered him as an intelligent
young novice that we needed a worthy enemy. We fight with ourselves, and make slow
progress on the Path, but we fight in ways we all know. We need an enemy that will
fight in ways we do not expect, that will fight smart and unpredictable. Telour
thinks you will find a way to prove that this is possible with humans. He may be
right.”

“We will prove him right.” Mirikami asserted.

“The watchers on the Clanship expected the small Kobani animals
to kill many more of you. The first test of captives on this world is for them to
reach the dome as the smallest killers teach you why you cannot escape from this
compound.

“When enough died, the waiting warriors were to come to protect
you. You had many to cross, but you were prepared to defend yourselves. Your small
guns we have seen before, but did not expect them to be useful on even the small
animals.

“When you used a fire weapon that you built yourself, it surprised
more that the flyers. This helped by making the larger flyers cautious, and they
have always been the greatest killer of humans on the first day. You even saved
all of your injured, and picked up your dead so the flyers would have nothing to
eat later, and they left.

“But remember, before you think to leave the compound to hide.
This is a protected place on Koban. There are dangerous animals we do not let interfere
with our testing of you.

“You are the only captives that have not received or needed warrior
protection in your first test. You did not pass the test with glory because some
died or were hurt by the smallest killers of this world. However, you did not fail
badly. In addition, the wreckage under the ship proves you completed disabling the
engines. That too was observed.” This was as close to a compliment from a Krall
that Mirikami had heard.

“Will Parkoda return here?” Mirikami’s hopes hung on the reply.
He feared Parkoda’s more influential clan would maliciously thwart Telour’s plans,
since the ship was actually
his
prize,

Kanpardi swung around so swiftly that it startled Mirikami into
flinching. He was gliding towards the hatch when he tossed the words back casually.

“Parkoda is the leader of the largest of three new raids. He
has already left Koban. I know of your agreement with Telour. He will return with
warriors from Graka clan so only we will see what happens here.”

Then he leaped from the ship and began running back to his shuttle,
followed by the other warriors.

Mirikami watched them run the entire distance, and had a tired
idle thought.
I’d pay a hundred Hub credits just to watch a damn Krall simply
walk somewhere one time.
However, tired or not, he felt satisfaction.

Telour had been given his chance, and humanity had been given
theirs.

There was no need to complete the evacuation with the ship safe
for now. When the three teams burst into the cargo hold ready to race off the ship,
they found the First Officer hugging the Captain, with Chack and Doctor Martin pounding
him joyfully on the back.

As soon as they heard the news, the entire forty of them also
got in on the congratulations. Mirikami felt like he was likely to die of celebratory
backslapping before the Krall even got their chance at him.

“People, please! I’m too damned exhausted to stand up to your
misplaced enthusiasm,” he complained with a smile, as he tried pushing them away.

“Misplaced how Sir?” Noreen unwrapped her arms and backed away.
“We kept the ship intact; we have a chance to turn our ideas into action. This work
wasn’t for nothing.”

“No, not for nothing,” he said tiredly, “but this was merely
an opening move in a very dangerous game we are playing. Regardless of how many
ideas we have, whatever tricks we play on them, the Krall warriors are going to
kill a lot of us in the process, even if we succeed.”

That sobering thought put a damper on the celebration, but not
completely. With the ship as a base for operational planning, they could work on
weapons and tactics largely out of view of the enemy. Telour and his clan mates
could of course come aboard to see what they were doing anytime, but the novice
warriors that would face them in combat would not know what to expect.

“Noreen, you have the ship, I’m going up to my quarters to clean
up, eat then sleep. Nan, Roni, Mike; excuse me, I mean Chief,” he grinned. Haveram
preferred being called by his rank rather than his first name.

“You and your teams worked spectacularly, and I know you must
be more exhausted than I am. Everyone will stay aboard the rest of the day and tonight.
Button the Fancy up and leave Jake on watch when you’re ready to sleep. I have found
my personal limits for Pep pills, and if you haven’t yet, you will. Good afternoon
and goodnight, I’ll see you all in the morning.” He stepped back and proudly saluted
his crew and volunteers, then headed for the lift.

They watched the exhausted “Old Man” of the Flight of Fancy walk
away, and they worried about him. His mind and will power had been their salvation
thus far, and they needed him.

Dillon found himself comparing Mirikami and Maggi to the Krall
they had met. Smaller and weaker than average, those two humans had thus far matched
up well against their enemy’s thinking. They couldn’t physically fight their way
out of the proverbial paper bag compared to any Krall, but had proven more than
once that they could out think them.

He had been more impressed with “General” Kanpardi’s intelligence.
Like humans, Krall intellect probably varied between individuals, though the physical
aspect was more their racial focus than mental ability.

From what Kanpardi had told Mirikami, Telour might be sort of
his protégé, because he described meeting him when he was a novice and he considered
him intelligent. Parkoda didn’t seem especially bright, but Telour might bear closer
watching if he were one of the above average specimens. Smart and ruthless would
be a bad combination in a Krall.

Dillon had only taken one dose of the Pep/Oxy combination so
far, and that was only when he’d been toting around the flamethrower equipment and
the weight of the soft suit. After removing the equipment he had stayed active,
but wasn’t tired.

Before settling down for the day, he had some planning to do,
and some Links to make. Noreen had followed the rest of the crew up for food and
showers, after retracting the big cargo ramp. The normal personnel escalator would
be used until the bulk of the passengers returned.

He’d heard a number of them say they might stay in the dome rather
than run the gauntlet to return. The risks were probably less now, since the other
captives said the wolfbats and skeeters were drawn to the noise of loud landings
or takeoffs. The Krall shuttles were much quieter, and seldom drew attention.

“Link to Doctor Fisher.”

“Done Sir.”

“Maggi, can you talk?” He heard her shortly, obviously still
speaking to Colonel Greeves.

“Thank you for your hospitality and information, but I had better
see what my crowd is doing downstairs…,” a pause, then “Certainly. I’ll mention
it to Tet first thing tomorrow. Goodbye.”